Friday, August 2, 2013

I’m in Toronto, a vibrant and international city, but I’m
not relating to this place as a tourist.No, it’s now become a family outpost.My kind and gentle brother-in-law, Poncho, is in the process of moving
here.My dashing bartender nephew will
be living here soon.And my spouse’s
long-lost uncle and aunt lived here, unknown to us, all during the time they
were lost– and now they’ve been found
in the mellow Toronto suburb of Oakville.

And then there’s Rosa. Our story is that we always meet in a different
country. She’s a dimpled, effervescent Venezuelan, and, like my spouse, she works in
international education and goes to a lot of conferences.I sometimes get to tag along to these, since
my work as an astrologer doesn’t chain me to a desk.And sometimes I get to see Rosa, and we
celebrate these wide circles that always bring us back to each other’s
orbit.

But this is the first time I’ve seen Rosa at home, in the
decade or so I’ve known her.She’s
married to a Canadian and their home base is here in Toronto.She and David live in a historic rowhouse, dark
red brick covered with ivy, inside surprisingly light and airy for an old
house.And so last night I got to see
Rosa at her most domestic, pouring wine and offering Cocosettes (a Venezuelan
cookie) and nudging her husband.

August begins with a strong Cancer influence, and Cancer is
the sign of home and family.And so it
makes sense that, even though my spouse and I got in the car and travelled
miles to get here, it feels rather like we’ve gone in a circle.We waited in the traffic on Peace Bridge,
stated our attentions to a border guard, and yet, Canada feels like our living
room.

You can see all this in the glyph for Cancer, which looks
like the yin/yang symbol.Each side
curls into the other, and the overall shape is that of a circle, smooth and
protected.Coming home is going
inward.It’s a place where it’s safe to
have feelings -investigating what’s
going on inside yourself,sharing
confidences and sympathies with well-known others.

Jupiter, the planet of benevolence and expansion, is the
main Cancer influence these days, and as August begins, Mars and Mercury are
lingering near it.Mercury recently came
out of its retrograde phase and has an innocent, newborn feel, while Mars (the
planet of action) is feeling its way into and out of everything.Cancer is a conservative influence, invested
in what is safe, sustaining and well-known.Growth tends to be slow and to move from the inside out, like a shell
adding layers.

So this seems like a pretty innocuous month, right?Well, not so much.Jupiter has some pretty serious challenges in
August, so it can’t just lie back and relax into old home week.For one thing, it’s being opposed by Pluto,
which deals with underlying transformations, in the stern sign Capricorn.This will be in orb until August 17.And overlapping with this (in orb from August
11 to 30) is a square from Uranus, the planet of sudden change, in the fiery
sign Aries.

What Jupiter in Cancer really wants is for the tribe to be
together, to feel good, to be safe, and to eat and drink in large
quantities.Family reunions are
Jupiter’s cup of tea – or perhaps I should say its overflowing punch bowl.And then Pluto enters this happy,
satisfying picture.Pluto appears like
visible evidence of everything you fear deep inside.

For George Zimmerman, those fears wore a hoodie, and so he
fired at his demons and ended up killing an unarmed child.This is how things can go tragically wrong,
when you see the Stranger outside yourself.The Stranger is always the part of yourself you can’t admit, you can’t
see, you can’t own.Because it can’t be
seen,you deck it with trappings, and
then persecute those trappings whenever you come across them in the world.Mostly when guys go crazy and start shooting
people, they end up killing themselves, finally coming around to the most accurate
place to aim the gun.The deep self is
the source of anger, shame, disgust and resentment.

And why is it generally – although not always -straight white guys who murder in this random
way?Because women, gay people, and
darker-skinned people are more likely to identify with the Stranger.We’ve been treated as the Stranger, the
Other, and so we have more room in our psyches for this figure.We recognize that it is not always what it
seems.And so we tend to fear more
realistic sources of danger:the
policeman, the judge, the group of drunken straight white men.

However, all of us have our demons, our unadmitted
selves.The Inner Stranger comes from
some part of yourself that you want to protect, but on some level, you know
that it must change.You know there’s
some rottenness there, something which avoids a direct look.Pluto is about deep transformation, but it
often begins in a ruthless way, carving out deep swathes of your being and
throwing them to the wolves. That’s
because nothing can thrive when there is rot at the core.

And so this is what Jupiter in Cancer has to contend with,
this August.Jupiter has already tied on
the apron, invited everyone over, and is busy offering drinks from the communal
punchbowl.Then Pluto walks into the
gathering, like the villain from out of town, and everybody turns to look, and
to imagine the worst.How can Jupiter be
safe, and how can she protect her family and friends and neighbors?The only way is to incorporate Pluto, to
welcome the Stranger.

And I know this is not easy, nor is it fast.And I know there are dangers.Pluto is essentially feral, nothing safe
about her. She is intent on breaking up the gathering.And it doesn’t help that she does this in the
interest of the absolutely necessary transformations that spell survival.So it’s not possible to be totally
light-hearted and happy in the presence of this Jupiter/Pluto opposition.The party has shifted to something more
intense – a strategy session, a therapy group, or maybe a hostage
situation.

And then Jupiter squares Uranus, so the changes just keep
coming.Home is where you belong, but
home is not a stationary place in August.It never really has been;you’ve
been hurtling through the universe at a breakneck speed, and now it becomes
apparent.Where the Jupiter/Pluto
opposition is tense and concentrated, the Jupiter/Uranus square is a wild,
breakneck ride.

You can imagine Uranus as the Rebel Priestess, known for her
magenta hair and clashing knee-socks and the shiny metallic discs hanging from
her utility belt.She can be as
destructive as Pluto, but she does it in a freewheeling way that can be kind of
fun.After all, people pay to ride
roller coasters, right?

But do be careful in August.There are lots of ways to effect change, both personally and
politically.In your effort to let a
little more air into your life, you don’t have to burn down your house.There can be a place for both Pluto and
Uranus at the party.Maybe you’ll find
Pluto in the corner, hypnotizing one of the guests with her unsettling gaze,
while Uranus is teaching everyone how to juggle the coffee cups.It’s a party that people will be talking
about for a good long while.

Tonight my spouse and I will be driving away from Toronto, away
from the warmth of our Canadian friends and family.But we won’t go back to our home base in DC,
at least not right away. Our plan is to
form a little cocoon, a week’s vacation near the beach, where we can talk to
each other, think about our lives, take deep breaths.It’s just a pause, another kind of
homecoming, before we are back in the thick of the forces of change.